Photo by Lily Ramus
A gloomy storm-tossed Tuesday is a miserable time to leave the house, but a perfect time for some occult doom metal. It was immediately apparent that this verdict reverberated across the bay: no one wanted to miss out on doom metal legends Candlemass, who sold out the DNA Lounge in San Francisco earlier this week. By the time we arrived at 8pm, the venue swarmed with generations of metalheads clad in all-black, chains, leather, and of course, their battle jackets. Anticipation buzzed as visibly as our breath in the frigid air as we all filed into the packed venue, clearly having made the right choice to brave the wind.
Soon after our arrival, goth metal supporters Unto Others took the stage and received a warm welcome from the audience. Unfortunately, the beginning of their set was plagued with various sound issues that would persist throughout the evening. Their first six songs were overshadowed by the glaring sound issues: the drums were the only instrument that was audible initially and the vocalist’s microphone was plagued with ear-piercing feedback. While technical difficulties are quite common and generally deserve some level of grace, it took almost half an hour for the issues to be resolved, which is unprecedented at any ‘professional’ level concert either of us have attended.
Painfully, much of the “oomph” of Unto Others’ speedy back-to-back high-intensity tracks “Nightfall” and “Heroin” was a casualty of the faulty mixing, as the otherwise crunchy distorted guitar chugging that drives the momentum of the tracks was comically overpowered by the pounding drums and thunderous bass. The ethereal, clean guitar leads that hauntingly loom over many of their best songs—one of many testaments to the band’s admiration of the Goth and New Wave music scenes of the early 1980s—stood no chance of being heard until their set was more than halfway done. That is all to say, the band performed admirably and professionally, and this was not reciprocated by the venue’s production team. Regardless, the guitars were eventually brought up to volume halfway through the title track to their debut album, “Mana,” and the rest of the set was smooth and enjoyable. Unto Others have found a massive, passionate audience in their unique blend of campy 80s soundscapes, and thus fit surprisingly well as a supporting act of a veritable metal legend like Candlemass.
After a quick break between sets that included pizza and beer—a welcome addition to any metal show—Candlemass were on stage by 10 PM, with the intro “Marche Funebre” (familiar to any viewers of the legendary music video for “Bewitched”) calling the dispersed crowd to re-congregate for a powerful sermon of guitars fuzzy and warm as hellfire and a booming baritone preaching brimstone. Unfortunately, the momentum of the transition into their first song proper, “Mirror Mirror,” was utterly hamstrung by the fact that the vocalist’s microphone was not turned on. Singer Johan Längquist stared helplessly at the sound booth, becoming increasingly frustrated for a solid 30 seconds before his protests were finally audible. Ever professional, he and the band dutifully and passionately performed the rest of the track.
Längquist only officially joined the band in 2018 despite singing the vocals on Candlemass’ seminal debut album Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (1986), and he sounds far fresher than his age or the band’s age would otherwise indicate. His voice has a more gravelly intonation than it did 46 years ago, but he exercises expert control and the slight rasp only adds to the power of the occult lyrical themes Candlemass revels in. The guitar tone (by this point of the night at least) was suitably decadent and lush, and the contrast between the rhythm guitar’s cavernous riffing and lead guitarist Lars Johansson’s crisp, well-paced solos, made Candlemass’ instrumental breaks highlights of the night. While many of the band’s songs hover around 80 bpm, there is still ample virtuosic shredding and Johansson demonstrates mastery over his craft in his intricate solos. If anything, the dramatic contrast in tempo between the plodding riffs and rapid solo runs is a happy marriage as the stark juxtaposition adds to the band’s flair for dark and moody melodramatic soundscapes. When all the instruments were audible, the band sounded excellent, decades of performing clearly only serving to sharpen their talents without diminishing their passion.
The call to battle that is the massive opening riff of their second song (and one of their biggest singles) “Bewitched” was heard loud and clear by several members of the circle pit, which was conjured by the band practically before they started playing. A few such metal warriors proceeded to violently attack each other until security was finally able to break into the pit several songs later to forcibly remove at least one participant…I don’t know if any other band with a discography composed almost entirely of songs as slow as 80 BPM can claim such a bloodthirsty fanbase. However, the largest and most tragic futile war of the night was between Längquist and an armada of half-functional microphones provided by DNA Lounge. Piercing feedback assaulted the audience, and mics unceremoniously died in the hands of the immensely talented and increasingly exasperated vocalist. The band was always professional and apologetic to the audience (despite not deserving even a fraction of the blame), but it was clearly bothering the metal veterans and that annoyance slowly but surely crept into their performance.
Regardless, it was a wonderful night for metal in San Francisco, with a pillar of the modern metal scene heralding the return of the most important doom metal band still touring to the bay. Both bands nobly played against a backdrop that at times felt like a sinking ship. Perhaps it’s fitting that doom metal as titanic as Candlemass’ was played against a backdrop as hopelessly and unjustifiably doomed as the Titanic.
Article by Lily Ramus and Tyler Harding
Photos by Lily Ramus